Characters

Build rich character profiles with images, backstories, and dialogue stats.

Opening the Characters Panel

Open the Characters panel from View > Characters. It appears as a side panel alongside the editor.

The panel automatically detects every character in your screenplay — anyone who has a Character element (i.e., anyone who speaks) appears in the list. Characters with images show a circular avatar in the collapsed view.

Character Statistics

Each character entry shows helpful statistics:

• Dialogue count — How many lines of dialogue this character has.
• Scene appearances — How many scenes the character appears in (as a speaker).
• First appearance — Which scene the character first speaks in.
• Scene list — A list of all scenes where the character appears.

Character Profiles

Click on a character name to expand their profile. Each profile includes a comprehensive set of fields inspired by Final Draft's Character Navigator:

Field	Type	Description
Description	Rich text	Character bio — supports bold, italic, underline, and bullet lists. Exported as plain text to Final Draft (.fdx).
Role	Dropdown	The character's role: Lead, Supporting, Featured, Background, or Day Player.
Gender	Text	The character's gender (e.g., Male, Female, Non-binary).
Age	Text	The character's age or age range (e.g., 30s, 45).
Backstory	Rich text	Character history, motivations, secrets — rich text with the same formatting options as Description.
Arc	Rich text	How the character changes through the story — their transformation from beginning to end. Rich text with the same formatting options.
Speech Pattern	Text	How the character speaks — e.g., "Formal and clipped", "Southern drawl, long sentences", "Monotone, minimal words".
Vocabulary	Text	The character's vocabulary level and word choices — e.g., "Academic, uses jargon", "Street slang", "Simple and direct".
Verbal Tics	Text	Distinctive speech quirks — e.g., "Says 'y'know' frequently", "Clears throat before speaking", "Trails off mid-sentence".
Sample Dialogue	Text	A few lines of example dialogue that capture the character's unique voice. Useful as a reference while writing their scenes.
Highlight color	Color picker	A color used to visually highlight this character's dialogue in the editor.

Character Arc

The Arc field is a rich text editor where you can outline how a character transforms through the story. This might include:

• Where they start emotionally and psychologically
• Key turning points that challenge their beliefs
• How they change (or resist change) by the climax
• Where they end up compared to where they began

Character arcs are stored alongside the screenplay and are included when you check in a version, so you can track how your understanding of a character evolves alongside your drafts.

Voice Profile

The four voice fields — Speech Pattern, Vocabulary, Verbal Tics, and Sample Dialogue — help you define how each character sounds on the page. Together they form a quick reference you can glance at while writing dialogue to keep every character's voice distinct and consistent.

Rich Text Editing

The Description, Backstory, and Arc fields use a mini rich text editor with a formatting toolbar:

• B — Bold
• I — Italic
• U — Underline
• • — Bullet list

This lets you structure character information clearly — for example, using bold for key traits, bullet lists for goals or relationships, and italic for quotes.

Character Images

You can associate one or more images with each character — headshots, costume references, mood boards, or any visual reference.

Adding Images

In the expanded character profile, you'll see two buttons:

• Upload Image — Upload a new image file from your computer. It's automatically added to the project's assets and tagged with the character's name.
• From Assets — Opens a picker showing all image assets already in your project. Click one to associate it with the character.

Viewing Images

• The first image (primary) is shown large at the top of the expanded profile and as a circular avatar in the collapsed character row.
• If there are multiple images, a thumbnail strip appears below the primary image. Click any thumbnail to view it full-size in a lightbox.

Managing Images

Hover over a thumbnail to reveal action buttons:

• ★ (star) — Set this image as the primary image (shown as avatar and first in the profile).
• × (remove) — Remove this image from the character. The image remains in project assets — only the association is removed.

Build from Script

The Build from Script feature automatically extracts character information from your screenplay's action lines:

1. Click the Build from Script button in the Characters panel.
2. OpenDraft scans your action lines for character introductions (e.g., "SARAH (30s, sharp eyes, messy bun) waits in line").
3. It automatically populates the character's description and age fields from the introduction text.

Character Highlighting

Each character can be assigned a highlight color. When enabled, each character's dialogue is tinted with their assigned color in the editor. This makes it easy to visually scan who's speaking at a glance. Toggle character highlighting from the Characters panel.

Colors are automatically assigned from a 12-color palette when characters are first detected. You can change any character's color in their expanded profile.

Sorting Characters

Sort the character list by:

• Name — Alphabetical order
• Importance — By number of dialogue lines (most dialogue first)
• Scenes — By number of scene appearances
• Dialogues — By dialogue count
• Appearance — Order of first appearance in the script

Character Relationships

OpenDraft lets you define relationships between characters and visualize them on an interactive map.

Adding a Relationship

1. Expand a character's profile in the Characters panel.
2. Scroll to the Relationships section and click Add Relationship.
3. Select the other character from the dropdown.
4. Choose the relationship type: Allies, Rivals, Family, Romantic, Mentor, Antagonist, Employer, or Friends.
5. Add a description to capture the specifics (e.g., “Sarah trained under Marcus for three years before they fell out”).
6. Set the dynamic: Stable, Evolving, Tense, One-sided, Supportive, Adversarial, or Complex.

Relationships are bidirectional — adding a relationship from Sarah to Marcus automatically appears on both characters' profiles.

Relationship Map

Click the Relationship Map button at the top of the Characters panel to open a visual graph of all character connections. Each character appears as a node, and each relationship appears as a connecting line with a label showing the relationship type.

The map is interactive:

• Drag nodes to rearrange the layout.
• Zoom with the scroll wheel or pinch gesture.
• Lines are color-coded by relationship type for quick visual scanning.

Referred Characters

The Show Referred toggle displays characters who are mentioned in action lines but never speak. This helps you track all characters in your story, not just those with dialogue.

Searching Characters

Use the search field at the top of the Characters panel to filter the list by name. This is helpful in scripts with large casts.